Model for microbiologically influenced corrosion potential assessment for the oil and gas industry

Corrosion is one of the major causes of failure in onshore and offshore oil and gas operations. Microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) is inherently more complex to predict, detect and measure because, for instance, the presence of biofilm and/or bacterial products is not sufficient to indicate active microbiological corrosion. The major challenge for current MIC models is to correlate factors that influence corrosion (i.e. chemical, physical, biological and molecular variables) with the potential of having MIC. Previous work has proposed the potential for MIC as a simple product of multiple factors, without fully considering the synergy or the interference among the factors. The present work proposes a network-based approach to analyse and predict MIC potential considering the complex interactions among a total of 60 influencing factors and 20 screening parameters. The proposed model has the ability to capture the complex interdependences and the synergic interactions of the factors used to assess MIC potential and uses an object-oriented approach based on a Bayesian Network. The model has been tested and verified using real data from a pipeline leakage incident that was a result of MIC. The proposed model constitutes a significant step in deepening the understanding of when MIC occurs and its predictability.

List of acronyms: APB: acid producing bacteria; Aw: water activity; BN: Bayesian network; MIC: microbiologically influenced corrosion; MMMs: molecular microbiological methods; NRB: nitrate-reducing bacteria; OOBN: object-oriented Bayesian network; PWRI: produced water re-injection; SPs: screening parameters; SRB: sulphate-reducing bacteria; SRPs: sulphate-reducing prokaryotes; TDSs: total dissolved solids     

Synthesis and thermal decomposition of potassium tetraamidoboranealuminate,K[Al(NH2BH3)4]

A new potassium tetraamidoboranealuminate, K[Al(NH₂BH₃)₄], has been synthesized by a mechanochemical reaction between KAlH₄ and NH₃BH₃. The compound, K[Al(NH₂BH₃)₄], crystallizes in a triclinic unit cell with space group symmetry P?1. The crystal structure consists of [K(NH₂BH₃)₆]^5? octahedra which facilitate the bridging between K⁺ in 1D chains, while also bridging K⁺ to Al³⁺ to connect the 1D chains in a 3D network. Thermal analysis reveals that K[Al(NH₂BH₃)₄] decomposes in two exothermic steps at T ～ 94 and 138 °C and releases primarily hydrogen. The total gas release amounts to ～6.0 wt% H₂. The decomposition products are investigated ex situ by powder X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, and ¹¹B and ²⁷Al NMR and identified as KBH₄ and amorphous phases, possibly BN₃, N₂BH, and/or NBH₂ whereas aluminum is found in four-, five-, and six-fold coordination. Unfortunately, the decomposed sample shows no hydrogen absorption at T = 260 °C and p(H₂) = 110 bar.     

Clocked power control circuit for inductively powered devices

Inductively powered devices are finding increasing use in many applications, such as biomedical implants and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. In these systems, because of transmitter and receiver movements, the receiver coil may get close to the transmitter coil, which results in more than needed power delivered to the receiver load. This increases heat dissipated in the receiver circuit. In order to avoid overheating the receiver in such a high magnetic field (short coil separation distance) condition, the received power should be monitored and controlled. This paper introduces a clocked power control circuit integrated in the implant receiver, which is an independent, automatic power adjustment solution to limit heat dissipation with response to the coil separation distance. In this circuit, the rectified voltage across the load is monitored, and converted to a digital representation to selectively detune the receiver inductor-capacitor (LC) tank. To demonstrate this concept, a design example applied to inductively powered implants is given. Measurements on the prototype with a varied coil separation distance validate the desired power control functionality. Less power dissipation is achieved for the receiver compared to no power control condition.     

Surveyance of disease frequency in a population by linkage to diagnostic laboratory databases. A system for monitoring the incidences of hyper- and hypothyroidism as part of the Danish iodine supplementation program

In Denmark an increase in iodine intake through salt iodization has been introduced in 1998. In parallel a program for surveyance of thyroid diseases in the population was developed as recommended by UNICEF and WHO. OBJECTIVE: To develop and evaluate a computer based system to identify and register new cases of hyper- and hypothyroidism in a well defined cohort, by linkage to diagnostic laboratory databases. DESIGN AND RESULTS: (1) Two sub cohorts for monitoring were defined (n=535,859), and evaluated to minimize loss of new cases. Collaboration was established with laboratories covering thyroid hormone analyses in the cohort; (2) a diagnostic algorithm was defined and evaluated against clinical practice; (3) evaluation of the laboratory methods employed by the four participating laboratories, to ensure they would reach the same diagnosis in a patient; (4) a register database was developed which used data imported from the laboratory databases to automatically identify previously unknown cases of hyper- and hypothyroidism and record diagnostic activity in the area. All parts of the registration were carefully evaluated. CONCLUSION: We describe for the first time a computer based system for prospective measuring the incidence rate of hyper- and hypothyroidism. The system is particularly useful for monitoring of iodine supplementation programmes.     

Multidimensional data modeling for location-based services

With the recent and continuing advances in areas such as wireless communications and positioning technologies, mobile, location-based services are becoming possible.Such services deliver location-dependent content to their users. More specifically, these services may capture the movements and requests of their users in multidimensional databases, i.e., data warehouses, and content delivery may be based on the results of complex queries on these data warehouses. Such queries aggregate detailed data in order to find useful patterns, e.g., in the interaction of a particular user with the services.The application of multidimensional technology in this context poses a range of new challenges. The specific challenge addressed here concerns the provision of an appropriate multidimensional data model. In particular, the paper extends an existing multidimensional data model and algebraic query language to accommodate spatial values that exhibit partial containment relationships instead of the total containment relationships normally assumed in multidimensional data models. Partial containment introduces imprecision in aggregation paths. The paper proposes a method for evaluating the imprecision of such paths. The paper also offers transformations of dimension hierarchies with partial containment relationships to simple hierarchies, to which existing precomputation techniques are applicable.Received: 28 September 2002, Accepted: 5 April 2003, Published online: 12 August 2003Edited by: J. Veijalainen Correspondence to: I. Timko     

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Editorial

Dear readers!     

Learning Paths to Offshore Outsourcing: From Cost Reduction to Knowledge Seeking

A corporation's offshore outsourcing may be seen as the result of a discrete, strategic decision taken in response to an increasing pressure from worldwide competition. However, empirical evidence of a representative cross-sector sample of international Danish firms indicates that offshore sourcing in low-cost countries is best described as a learning-by-doing process in which the offshore outsourcing of a corporation goes through a sequence of stages towards sourcing for innovation. Initially, a corporation's outsourcing is driven by a desire for cost minimization. Over a period of time the outsourcing experience lessens the cognitive limitations of decision-makers as to the advantages that can be achieved through outsourcing in low-cost countries: the insourcer/vendor may not only offer cost advantages, but also quality improvement and innovation. The quality improvements that offshore outsourcing may bring about evoke a realization in the corporation that even innovative processes can be outsourced.     

Specifying OLAP Cubes on XML Data

On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) enables analysts to gain insight about data through fast and interactive access to a variety of possible views on information, organized in a dimensional model. The demand for data integration is rapidly becoming larger as more and more information sources appear in modern enterprises. In the data warehousing approach, selected information is extracted in advance and stored in a repository, yielding good query performance. However, in many situations a logical (rather than physical) integration of data is preferable. Previous web-based data integration efforts have focused almost exclusively on the logical level of data models, creating a need for techniques focused on the conceptual level. Also, previous integration techniques for web-based data have not addressed the special needs of OLAP tools such as handling dimensions with hierarchies. Extensible Markup Language (XML) is fast becoming the new standard for data representation and exchange on the World Wide Web. The rapid emergence of XML data on the web, e.g., business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, is making it necessary for OLAP and other data analysis tools to handle XML data as well as traditional data formats.Based on a real-world case study, this paper presents an approach to specification of OLAP DBs based on web data. Unlike previous work, this approach takes special OLAP issues such as dimension hierarchies and correct aggregation of data into account. Also, the approach works on the conceptual level, using Unified Modeling Language (UML) as a basis for so-called UML snowflake diagrams that precisely capture the multidimensional structure of the data. An integration architecture that allows the logical integration of XML and relational data sources for use by OLAP tools is also presented.     

Trimming of Graphs, with Application to Point Labeling

For t>0 and g≥0, a vertex-weighted graph of total weight W is (t,g)-trimmable if it contains a vertex-induced subgraph of total weight at least (1−1/t)W and with no simple path of more than g edges. A family of graphs is trimmable if for every constant t>0, there is a constant g≥0 such that every vertex-weighted graph in the family is (t,g)-trimmable. We show that every family of graphs of bounded domino treewidth is trimmable. This implies that every family of graphs of bounded degree is trimmable if the graphs in the family have bounded treewidth or are planar. We also show that every family of directed graphs of bounded layer bandwidth (a less restrictive condition than bounded directed bandwidth) is trimmable. As an application of these results, we derive polynomial-time approximation schemes for various forms of the problem of labeling a subset of given weighted point features with nonoverlapping sliding axes-parallel rectangular labels so as to maximize the total weight of the labeled features, provided that the ratios of label heights or the ratios of label lengths are bounded by a constant. This settles one of the last major open questions in the theory of map labeling.